Nine year wait for bumper harvest

Anne and Bill Ashdown of Waihi have waited rather a long time for their first olive harvest - nine years in fact.
"People told us olives wouldn't do well in Waihi but we planted them anyway," said Anne.
The couple planted 133 trees of six different varieties, supplied by a nursery in Blenheim, on their lifestyle property just north of the town in 2002.
At the time, Bill was still commuting to Auckland where he was working as a builder and Anne was a cook at Hethrington House. The couple, who moved to Waihi from Auckland 15 years ago, also ran a homestay business, which they are now winding down.
"We have planted virtually everything on this land and now are starting to have to cut trees back because everything grows so well here," said Anne who often opens her garden to the public to assist with fundraising events.
The olives were pruned once after planting, but other than that were left to their own devices. Sheep kept the grass in the olive grove down, nibbling off lower shoots and ring-barking the trees, something Anne said is supposed to help improve fruiting. "Our soil pH isn't right for olives either, but we did apply lime from time to time."
Finally this year, the trees produced a crop worth harvesting and with the help of friends, 240kg of olives were picked in a day, producing 24 litres of rich extra virgin olive oil.
Bert van Heuckelum of Katikati Frantoio Ltd, who pressed and bottled the olives for Bill and Anne, lent them rakes to pluck fruit from the trees and nets to catch them as they fell. "Some of the trees were 30-feet high and we simply couldn't reach all the olives with the rakes so in the end Bill cut off the branches and we picked them that way."
The olives then had to be cleaned of leaves and debris - back breaking work for the pickers kneeling over the nets laid out on the ground.
An old bed frame fitted to a tractor provided a better solution and the olives were picked and cleaned in one day.
"We were totally exhausted. It was a lesson in how not to harvest olives I think, but of all the things I've done in my life, that harvest will be one which will stay with me.
"It was about challenges and the friendship of everyone who helped and then at the end of it all, a wonderful rich product," said Anne who has sold some of the oil, reserving the rest to give to the volunteer pickers and to use in her own kitchen.
"It really is too good to use in cooking. It should be used for dipping or dressings."
Now with the harvest over, son Martin has come north from South Canterbury to prune the trees, assuring his parents that despite the extensive amount of material he has removed, the trees will fruit again next season.
Right now, Anne doesn't care if she never sees another olive, but all that might change in 12 month's time if the trees bear the promised fruit.